dj bean

Five predictions for the Bruins

With a 48-game season following a very short training camp, the common line of thinking is to expect the unexpected. Teams throughout the league will deal with out of shape or rusty players, and the expectation is that the overall play will be sloppy early on as a result. This would be the worst season for someone to try to accurately make predictions and sound like they know what they're talking about.

Now, here are five predictions:

David Krejci will lead the Bruins in points: With no disrespect intended to Tyler Seguin or Patrice Bergeron, the guess here is that the stars could align for Krejci to finally explode in the regular season.

Krejci had 73 points (22 goals, 51 assists) in the 2008-09 season, but has yet to return to the 70-point mark, finishing with 52 points in 2009-10 and 62 points in each of the last two seasons (spolier alert: He won't have 70 points in the shortened season, either). He’s been known to have his lulls during the lengthy regular season with a tendency to turn it on when the games count, so he should have no problem staying motivated during the 48-game season.

Of course, there are big questions surrounding Krejci. Will he be content now that he has his big contract (three years, $15.75 million)? How will his linemates fare in this shortened season? Nathan Horton hasn’t played in an NHL game in almost a calendar year, but he’s certainly been working out, which explains why he arrived for training camp looking like Bane.

As long as Horton stays healthy and Milan Lucic isn’t hindered by not having played during the lockout, the opportunity will be there for Krejci’s line to do damage.

The Bruins will get off to a hot start: Yes, it will be tough with two of the team’s first three games against the Rangers, but the Bruins will actually face only two 2011-12 playoff teams (the Rangers and Devils for a total of four contests, three of which are against the Rangers) in their first 15 games. Their other games in that span are as follows: Winnipeg, Islanders, at Carolina, Buffalo, at Toronto, at Montreal, Tampa Bay, at Buffalo, at Buffalo, at Winnipeg, at Tampa Bay.

Given that schedule, it will take a few catastrophes for the B’s to not be sitting pretty just under a third of the way through the season. The Bruins got off to a terrible start last season and began the second month of the season dead last in the Eastern Conference thanks to a 3-7-0 record. They were tired and they were distracted by what seemed like hourly Stanley Cup tours. That won’t be the case this season, as 12 players played overseas, while 14 of the guys in the lineup played (whether in Europe, the AHL or junior) during the lockout.

Zdeno Chara will win the Norris Trophy: I’ll come right out and admit to being one of the cranky old geezers who did not use on of their five Norris votes on eventual winner Erik Karlsson, believing that the winner of the award given to "the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position" had to, you know, at least kind of play defense.

For what it’s worth, I did give Karlsson a fourth-place vote for the Hart Trophy, and I did not give Chara my first-place vote for Norris. That went to Shea Weber, who finished second by a narrow margin for the second consecutive season.

With Nicklas Lidstrom (who won it seven times – as recently as 2011 – and finished fifth last season) retired, the list of perennial contenders shrinks. Weber could finally win the Norris for the first time in his career, but he’ll be without longtime partner Ryan Suter, who left Nashville to ink a gargantuan contract with the Wild. Karlsson could repeat, of course, but can he at least play on the penalty kill before he gets that many first-place votes?

As for Chara, the 2009 Norris recipient didn’t deserve to win last season. He had an un-Chara-like drowsy stretch that coincided with the Bruins’ midseason malaise. Chara, who led the NHL with a plus-33 rating and only one game with a rating worse than minus-2 in the 2010-11 season, was a minus-3 three different times in February and March. He had a particularly rough stretch from Feb. 8-19, finishing with a negative rating in five of six games.

Perhaps that was Chara’s version of the Stanley Cup hangover, but whatever it was, it cost him the Norris. Even so, he remains the toughest defenseman in the league to play against, and a consistent season should make him a favorite to win the coveted award for a second time.

The Northeast Division won’t be close: Anything can happen in a short season, and a strong 10, 15, 20-game run can put any team in good position to make the playoffs, but the safe bet is that the Bruins are the only serious Cup contenders in their division.

The Senators or Sabres – both of whom will play the B’s five times -- figure to be the Bruins’ biggest competition, with Ottawa coming off an eighth-seed finish last season and the Sabres toughening up with the additions of Steve Ott and John Scott.

Though the Sabres might be better-equipped to drop the gloves with the B’s, they still can’t hang with them. Buffallo finished in the bottom half of the league in scoring, goals against, power play and penalty kill.

Then there’s the Maple Leafs and the Canadiens. The Leafs weakened their blue line in trading Luke Schenn for James van Riemsdyk, and though van Riemsdyk is one of the most talented players in the league, that’s an awfully risky move for a team with suspect goaltending.

The Habs, on the other hand, definitely have the goaltending, but they have a new coach with a new system to go with a team coming off a brutal season. Then there’s the fact that they didn’t sign restricted free agent P.K. Subban during training camp. Even if that team eventually hits its stride, it could take quite a while.

Anton Khudobin will play 15 games: That doesn’t necessarily mean that Tuukka Rask will miss any time due to injury, but Claude Julien is a strong believer in having a reliable goaltending tandem.

Obviously, that’s an easy philosophy to adhere to when your two goalies are Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask, but don’t think that Julien will hesitate to give Khudobin his games between the pipes just because he isn’t the caliber of a Rask or a Thomas.

The Bruins have seven sets of back-to-back games this season. Last season, Julien started two different netminders in nine of the team’s 12 back-to-backs, and he played two different goalies in 10 of them. Given that, you can expect Khudobin, who struggled on a bad team in the KHL during the lockout, to get into plenty of those games. You can especially expect to see plenty of Khudobin from March 11-17, a seven-day stretch in which the Bruins will play five games.

Greg and Chris talk with Mike Reiss from ESPN Boston in hour 2 of NFL Sunday to discuss a variety of offseason happenings with the Pats and throughout the league. Greg and Chris also get into the NFL Draft and where Mariota and Winston will go.

Mike Reiss calls the guys to talk about the offseason news for the Pats. He talks about the Pats/Jets tampoering fiasco, free agency, where he sees Ridley and Connolly ending up, if the Patriots would be interested in Reggie Wayne and more.

In the first hour of the show, Greg and Chris discuss the news coming out of the owners' meetings this week and rule changes. Belichick's blow-up over the league not wanting to spend on endzone cameras was well documented and the guys react. They also talk about the Jets ridiculous tampering charges, free agents still lingering out there, where Stevan Ridley will land and the RB position in New England. Dickerson and Price briefly discuss the adventures of Tom Brady before being joined by WEEI.com's Mike Petraglia to talk all things Pats in the offseason.

Flannery joins Mut to break down the Isaiah Thomas trade to Boston and what it means for the Celtics this season and in the future. Paul also chats with Mut about the other deals that happened at the NBA's trading deadline

Mut, Tomase, and Bradford kick things off talking about Shane Victorino taking offense to people reading into some comments he made about trading for Cole Hamels. They also discuss Blake Swihart and how soon he could be up if Christian Vazquez starts the season on the DL.

Joe Kelly joined the Hot Stove show where he talked about being ready for his next spring training start after a biceps ailment forced him out of his last outing, he talks about his NCAA brackets and how teammate Wade Miley has a perfect bracket still.

Peter Chiarelli joined the Sunday Skate crew to talk about the Bruins playoff push heading into the final handful of games of the regular season. Chiarelli talked about avoiding some of the overly negative feedback he gets while realizing that the team does have real issues. He discusses what went down at the trade deadline and if he was happy with the outcome, Lucic having a down year and underperforming, the salary cap and if he considers it as big of an issue as it's been made out to be and what the future holds for the team.

It's a big hour #2 for the Sunday Skate dudes - they talk about the B's defenseman and what the future looks like at that position, with both moves the team can make and younger guys in the AHL. They also get into the Bruins philosophy on bringing guys up and sending them back down and how players deal with that. Finally, the boys are joined by Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli to discuss EVERYTHING.

The Sunday Skate crew gets the show going discussing the Bruins big, impressive victory over the NY Rangers yesterday. What can you take from that game? According to LB - Lyndon Byers - who called the guys from the road, not a lot. LB drops a dime on what was going on with the Rangers yesterday. DJ and Joe discuss Claude's lines and groupings and the importance of Ryan Spooner. They also get into Lucic, his contributions this year and if he can turn things around.

With the Wells report seemingly wrapping up (we hope), Tim and Lou got to talking about possible fines and punishments the Patriots must face. It's possible that the Patriots will face a small fine, but should they take that laying down? The conversation brings out a little passion from BOTH sides.